PHIL experimentation on fault ride through behavior of doubly fed induction generator based wind system in the presence of fault current limiter

Abstract

In recent years, the large-scale coal fired thermal power plants are facing serious setback to meet the growing electricity need of the planet. In addition to this, the increased environmental concern of the mankind has paved the path for alternate energy sources to satisfy the thirst of global energy need. Currently, the doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) based wind system has got lot of attention due to its inherent benefits of reduced converter size and independent control of back to back converters. The main drawback of the DFIG wind system is its poor fault ride through (FRT) capabilities. Most of the FRT studies in the literature consider fault to take place after the fault current limiter (FCL) with respect to the DFIG wind system. However, in this paper, the power hardware in loop (PHIL) experimentation is conducted in order to study the transient behavior when fault occurs before the FCL with respect to DFIG system. The system under study mainly consists of a 2 KW rated DFIG wind system. This is connected to the modified IEEE 33 bus distribution system simulated in the real time digital simulator (RTDS) platform via power amplifier. The PHIL experimental results convey an important message that the occurrence of fault before FCL may worsen the FRT of the DFIG wind system and hence a combination of different FRT techniques would be recommended under such cases.